“We actually scripted a rainbow. The kids were supposed to have seen the cows and then look up and see a rainbow. We were going to have a CGI rainbow where they chase a rainbow through a field, but two weeks earlier we were shooting at The Magic Castle and suddenly everyone goes there is a real rainbow over the motel and I thought if we shot that it would save the production 50 grand. ‘Get the camera down there. ’ You know it’s a 35mm camera— it took seven whole minutes to get it down there and when we did we only had moments to capture it because it was fading. Those two little girls knew what to do. They just jumped right into that little talk about the leprechaun and ran off into the parking lot. So there are happy accidents and also moments of desperate improvisation in front of and behind the camera. That’s just the way I like to work sometimes.”
Sean Baker (who co-wrote The Florida Project with Chris Bergoch)
The Director’s Cut podcast interview with Paul Schrader

Valeria Cotto and Brooklynn Prince in The Florida Project

Speaking of rainbows, here’s a scene that I think the young character Moonee in The Florida Project would enjoy. Where Judy Garland ponders if there is such a place where there isn’t any trouble.

Like this:

“Of course Nebraska is a storehouse for literary material. Everywhere is a storehouse of literary material. If a true artist were born in a pigpen and raised in a sty, he would still find plenty of inspiration for work. The only need is the eye to see.”Willa CatherMy Antonia

The Central Florida Project (CFP) was a success. Not to be confused with the movie The Florida Project, what I’m calling the CFP is in regard to the University of Central Florida football team. Two years ago they finished the season 0-12 and this season they finished 12-0 with an invitation to play Auburn in the Peach Bowl.

It was a remarkable turn around and much of the credit goes to coach Scott Frost. But Saturday in the roller coaster world of sports, shortly after Frost led UCF to an American Conference championship victory it was announced that he was taking the head football coach position at the University of Nebraska. Which is not only his Alma mater, and where he was the QB when Nebraska won a national championship in ’97, but also comes with a $35 million contract.

When someone asked me why Frost would leave sunny Orlando for the often cold midwest, I said I could think of 35 million reasons why. But first he’s going home. And second he has the chance to now work on The Nebraska Project.

A chance to restore the Nebraska football program. One that’s been playing football since 1890 and was back to back national champions in the 70s and in the 90s. But also one that finished this season unranked at 4-8, and hasn’t had a top 10 finish in over 15 years.

Frost returning to Lincoln is ripped from the pages of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Frost’s ordinary world started in Wood River, Nebraska (population 1325) where he had a mentors, and he went through various tests and trails, faced enemies, crossed thresholds, hit a wall, found a new direction, found redemption in taking a team from worst to first, and now he’s taking the elixir back home to Nebraska where his mentors proudly wait for him to restore an area to its former glory. That’s the Hero’s Journey. It may not be a movie, but’s it dramatic and cinematic. An ESPN 30 by 30 on it is probably already in the works, and the movie rights being negotiated.

But some wonder if top players these days can be drawn to a school in Lincoln, Nebraska. But I fall on the side that great players follow great coaches. I wouldn’t be surprised if Frost helped the Nebraska team finish in the top 25 next season, and in the top ten within four. Time will tell.

Back in 2008 Scott Frost and Nebraska’s new defensive coordinator Erik Chinander were assistance on the University of Northern Iowa football team in Cedar Falls, Iowa. That’s the same year and town where I started this blog.

Congrats to both Frost and Chinander—it’s good to see people rise up from somewhat smaller pockets of the country and get their moment in the spotlight on a national stage.

Like this:

The past week has been crazier that most which explain the largest gap between posts in maybe a couple of years. Trying to get back in the saddle with a photo I took at the end of November. It’s at the Vero Beach Museum of Art . They have a current exhibit of Master of American Photography which includes the work of many that have inspired me since I was a teenager; Ansel Adams, Arnold , Margaret Bourke-White, Edward Weston. But the piece I really wanted to see was was Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother, taken in1936.

It’s one of the most well-known photos in American history. And it’s a photo that’s not far from The Florida Project that I’ve been writing about since that movie came out last month.

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